


Happiness is a Wind-Up Fish Toy

by Geonn



Category: Rango (2011)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:37:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rango thinks about things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness is a Wind-Up Fish Toy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rysler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rysler/gifts).



Dirt settled down some. Of course, the correct turn of phrase was "dust settled," but Rango was used to working with the material he was given. They had a new mayor. Angelique, the mayor's secretary, turned out to have a keen political mind and a willingness to make up for her predecessor's mistake. That was good enough for Rango, but he was gonna keep an eye on her anyway. He'd learned a long time ago never to trust a foxy lady, and that went double for ladies who were actually foxes. Not to be racist, or anything.

It wasn't a perfect time, not by a long shot. Rattlesnake Jake was still out there somewhere, and they had an uneasy truce with the hill people now that there was enough water to go around. Plus it would take some time to fix the damage from the last showdown. It might not have been perfect, but it was mostly peaceful. And Beans was still there; that counted for something. She still froze from time to time, but he'd become accustomed to pacing his conversation and stopping in the middle of a sentence until she came back around.

It was a lot for anyone to be in charge of, let alone a chameleon who until recently only had to worry about when a cricket would get dropped into his terrarium. He was able to unwind by staging performances on the town's main stage. "Now Presenting, in a Return Engagement, Sheriff _**Rango!!!**_ and a Repertoire of Dirt's _**Finest**_ Players!" They did Shakespeare (what he could remember) and various Broadway plays (he had to guess the plot from the soundtracks his previous owners had played over and over again).

In "Wicked," Rango played Elphaba with painted weeds as a wig and a screechy falsetto (Beans protested, but Rango pointed out that his skin color demanded it). During "Legally Blonde," Beans only froze three times during the court scenes. The critic for Dirt's newspaper called it an "interesting dramatic choice" and awarded them four tumbleweeds (the third highest review ever given to a theatrical performance, which is less impressive considering it was Dirt's third theatrical performance ever). Their production of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" was cancelled not long into previews when Elbows, Spoons and Gordy Papa all got hurt.

But sometimes it was too much. Rango liked to consider himself a lizard of the world, but the truth was he had been pampered his entire life. He had stumbled into the job here in Dirt and he was doing his best to make a go of it. The townspeople seemed more than willing to give him time for growing pains, but sometimes he wondered when their patience would run out.

During these moments of self-doubt, Rango had a surefire cure. He would lock the door of the sheriff's office, look up and down the street before he pulled the shades, and then he would hurry into the back room where he'd stored his secret weapon. It was wrapped in a blanket tucked way in the back behind a file cabinet where no one would stumble over it. He took it out, carefully took off the blanket, and sat in the corner with his arms wrapped around the sole remnant of his time in the safety of the tank.

His orange wind-up fish.

He hadn't known why he held onto it at first. It had never really been a favorite (and it was terrible in every production he'd ever held (except for Miss Saigon for some reason)), but it was comforting. It reminded him of a time when he was safe and cared for, and sometimes that was what he really needed in this scary version of the world.

Rango never stayed long in this back room. He didn't use the fish as an escape or a retreat. He just held onto it for a while and thought about when he had no responsibilities, and when getting fed meant just wandering to a certain side of the tank at a certain time of day. He didn't let the melancholy get the better of him, though. He stayed for ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty minutes if it had been a really tough day. But then he would wrap the fish up, put it back into its hiding place, and go back to work.

Being out of the tank was scary, sometimes, but it was the real world. It was a life. And he wouldn't trade that for all the wind-up fish in the world.


End file.
